Casey Accidental

APRIL 13, 2021

As a product leader with a background in growth, it’s surprising how much what I actually end up working on is product/market fit. Product people should only be focused on growth i.e. connecting people to the value of a product once they’ve confirmed the product is delivering value.

Product Marketing 145

Product Marketing Marketing Scale Retention 145

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 29, 2023

Lattice has launched four product suites in the last eight years, and the ideas that drove their growth apply to most companies today. Many of you are familiar with this visual, most likely created by an investment firm. This showcases a narrow segment of a niche market, and it’s missing a lot of startups.

Scale 221

Scale Scaling Startup Sales Hiring 221

SaaStr

AUGUST 27, 2021

Folks want to start startups because they have a chance to look like this: The true definition of a tech startup is probably one that if it truly achieves product-market fit, can scale almost infinitely. The above example is of my third venture investment, Talkdesk. In 2014, it had 6 employees.

Startup 279

Startup Scaling Investment Product Marketing 279

Andreessen Horowitz

OCTOBER 16, 2023

One of the toughest challenges for founders — and especially technical founders who are used to focusing so much on product features over sales — is striking “product-market fit”. What does this mean for product design and product management? the night before it was to IPO).

Product Marketing 76

Product Marketing Scale Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting 76

The Angel VC

AUGUST 7, 2014

Product/market fit is a topic that I've touched on a few times on this blog. It's that extremely crucial but somewhat hard to define (and even harder to measure) step which every startup needs to cross as it goes from an idea to a product to a real, scalable business.

Product Marketing 133

Product Marketing Startup Marketing SaaS 133

SaaStr

MARCH 5, 2022

The life of a startup is not a smooth ride. Starting with his time as an investment banker and later working in SaaS, Yancey Spruill, CEO at DigitalOcean , watched venture capitalists invest in seemingly strong companies, only to sell them off. Process is a friend, not a foe, in order to scale.

Startup 242

Startup Leadership Innovation Scaling 242

SaaStr

OCTOBER 6, 2023

If you’re a seed-stage startup, Michael shares the best ways for you to present your company to startup investors. This is the same advice they give YC companies to become much more successful at fundraising when they’re pre-product market fit. If this is week two of your startup, you probably don’t have any traction.

Payment Methods 212

Payment Methods Startup Payment Solutions Sales Hiring 212

Casey Accidental

MARCH 29, 2022

A common issue leaders in product management, design, or engineering face is justifying investment in the “non-sexy” stuff. What is not sexy can differ by company, but usually the sexy things are new products and few features. Another way to say that is product/market fit has a positive slope. User Experience.

Investment 139

Investment Underperforming Technical Team User Experience Scale 139

Kellblog

JULY 17, 2022

In general, I think branding is a potential marketing rathole for startups, particularly early-stage ones. Some startups put the cart in front of the horse. Create a product. Get product-market fit (PMF), i.e., determine some problem you solve for some person with some product. Go sell some software.

Branding 132

Branding Startup Software Sales Recruiting 132

SaaStr

DECEMBER 14, 2023

Alison brings the perspective of all sides of a startup, from investing to SaaS to Cloud. With the marketing team, there are a lot of the classic functions — brand marketing, product marketing, and partner marketing. Right now, 70% of the GenAI startups are using Google Cloud.

Cloud 229

Cloud Scale AWS AI 229

Intercom, Inc.

JULY 18, 2022

Des shares insights from the full range of his career – the chat is packed full of anecdotes and lessons about the origins of Intercom, the most enduring startup myths, his approach to angel investing, the challenge of SaaS product marketing, and much more. ” The Makings of Great Product Marketing.

Enterprise 118

Enterprise Startup Strategy SaaS 118

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 24, 2020

Y Combinator CEO Michael Seibel is featured in one of our most-watched SaaStr videos of all time — so we were delighted to have him back during our SaaStr at Home event to share the top 5 things that kill startups after their seed rounds, and how to avoid them. 1 Fake product-market fit. Lack of strong technical talent.

Underperforming Technical Team 171

Underperforming Technical Team Startup Engineering Retention 171

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 30, 2021

Over the last eight years as Y Combinator ’s Managing Director and Group Partner, I’ve advised thousands of startup founders on their businesses. You’ll learn ten times faster, iterate product ten times faster, solve your customers’ problems, and grow. . Filtering customers is the name of the game in early-stage startups. .

Startup 193

Startup Scaling Banking Product Marketing 193

Tom Tunguz

DECEMBER 9, 2020

Linda’s professional journey has taken her across businesses of all sizes — from startups in hypergrowth mode to mature, multi-hundred million-dollar businesses. She started off in product marketing at Google, helping launch Google Chrome and Android. The key to a successful individual hire is curiosity and growth mindset.

Startup 259

Startup Management Systems Review Leadership 259

OpenView Labs

APRIL 3, 2019

90% of startups fail, according to an in-depth analysis of 3,200 companies as part of the Startup Genome Report. It’s no wonder that the startup community obsesses over finding product-market fit. Product-market-price fit. more likely to say they botched their go-to-market strategy.

Product Marketing 63

Product Marketing Pricing Scale Marketing 63

Tom Tunguz

OCTOBER 7, 2015

Is it worth more or less than X product? Ascertain whether the customer believes the return on investment is wildly in their favor. Fast evolving products with great customer support convey to users that the startup cares about delighting them. How much do you pay? Both of these questions indicate churn risk.

Product Marketing 159

Product Marketing Development Team Review Software Review Startup 159

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 22, 2024

What’s your most recent disclosed investment? I have known Deepinder for several years, and he has great product instincts and hustle. I have known Deepinder for several years, and he has great product instincts and hustle. What’s your sweet spot for investing — check size, stage, type of deal? Check that out here.

Innovation 232

Innovation Wireless Acquisition Technology 232

Clouded Judgement

JANUARY 12, 2024

Setting the stage for our convo was the increase in startups either shutting down or being acquired / acquihired recently. Many companies raised rounds in 2021 who thought they had product market fit. Or who thought their market was 10x bigger than it actually was. The environment got tougher for EVERYONE.

Cloud 284

Cloud Venture Capital Acquisition Metrics 284

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 20, 2023

So Harry Stebbings was kind enough to have us back in the new group format on 20VC with 2 of the legends in seed investing, Eric Paley of Founder Collective and Mike Maples of Floodgate: While both aren’t pure SaaS investors, they’re both in the top 1% (!), with investments in The Trade Desk, Okta, Airtable, Slack and much more!

Venture Capital 225

Venture Capital Investment Pricing Startup 225

SaaStr

MARCH 7, 2024

What’s your most recent disclosed investment? What’s your sweet spot for investing — check size, stage, type of deal? For over two decades, Creandum has specialized in early-stage investing, Seed and Series A. Some of our most notable investments include Spotify, Klarna, Bolt, Neo4j, Pleo or Factorial.

Payments 196

Payments Payment Services Payment Solutions Scale 196

SaaStr

JUNE 17, 2023

In the ever-evolving landscape of SaaS, Venture Capital, Bootstrapping, and Valuations – understanding market trends and investment patterns is critical. We’ll explain Jason’s take on the recent market fluctuations, highlighting major deals that shaped investment patterns and their effects on valuation trends.

Venture Capital 204

Venture Capital Scale Technical Review Software Review 204

Tom Tunguz

AUGUST 14, 2017

The cash conversion cycle is a key metric for startups, but one that often isn’t talked about until a business hires a CFO. Once a business established product market fit, the cash conversion cycle is a key metric of a company’s cash efficiency - how quickly a company can convert a dollar of investment into a dollar of cash flow.

Startup 189

Startup Sales Hiring Payment Solutions Payment Services 189

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 3, 2021

Be an SDR, a demand gen person, a cold caller, a product marketer, an opener and a closer. It’s not a huge investment, viewed that way. A related post here: The post One Tough (But Rewarding) Job: Being the First Sales Rep at a SaaS Startup appeared first on SaaStr. Your boss may expect you to do it all.

Sales Hiring 265

Sales Hiring Startup Sales SaaS 265

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 10, 2024

This is a mistake many entrepreneurs make once they have the tiniest bit of product-market fit. If you got 10, 50, 100 businessess to actually buy Yet Another SaaS Product — that is something. CEOs of startups with millions in revenue. Just one great one. You may be doing better than you think. Same with me.

Startup 297

Startup Investment Product Marketing Revenue 297

Brian Balfour

JUNE 28, 2017

I’ve been lucky to have been part of building, advising, or investing in 40+ tech companies in the past 10 years. It’s Not Just Great Product The “go-to” answer for almost every question in startups, is “build a great product.” Building a great product is a piece of the puzzle, but it’s far from the full picture.

Product Marketing 111

Product Marketing Growth Hacking Marketing Construction 111

SaaStr

APRIL 3, 2024

As a startup, you can look at it a few ways. How do I leverage GenAI in my product to drive competitive advantage? They differ from startups because they’re Fortune 100 companies with a lot of legacy, incumbency, and regulation. It depends on the utility of your product and platform as it is.

Generative AI 224

Generative AI AI Technical Review Software Review 224

Intercom, Inc.

JUNE 1, 2018

The most important tasks for any early stage startup are to write code and talk to users. Founding a startup is a lot like this. In the very early days of Intercom the marketing hat fell on my head, but I’d be doing marketing a disservice (and 2011 Des a disservice) if I said that’s what I thought I was doing.

Startup 201

Startup Strategy Marketing Social Media 201

Tom Tunguz

JULY 19, 2023

For many startups today feel like they are operating under dark skies. Reflecting on the last three quarters : Startups have parted with colleagues to extend runway in a difficult fundraising market. The M&A & IPO markets are quiet. This is the part of the startup cycle that’s the grit-your-teeth grind.

Forecasting 186

Forecasting Startup Pricing Investment 186

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 21, 2024

Sydney pulled someone from Salesloft with a product marketing background who understands operations, running programs, and being strategic. This person has built out a partnership marketing team within the product marketing team. Pick your strategies, invest in them, and start tiering. It won’t work.

AWS 198

AWS Scale Sales Hiring Marketing 198

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 7, 2023

with Yamini Jain, Co-founder at Global roots inc How to manage a SAAS startup effectively? with Olivier Adam, Chief Growth Officer at ReferralCandy Successful Scaling Across Markets, Lessons in Marketing & Building GTM with IvyCap’s MP with Ashish Wadhwani, Co-founder and Managing Partner.

VP of Engineering 230

VP of Engineering Technical Cofounder Outsourcing Services CTO Coach 230

SaaStr

JUNE 7, 2023

Scaling a tech startup doesn’t come easy, and when you’ve tried all the conventional SaaS advice, it might be tempting to give up. Blosser comments, “The big thing I want to share with everyone is just stick with it if you feel like you have product-market fit. Great Startups Create Their Own Categories.”

Scale 190

Scale Scaling SMB Marketing 190

Tom Tunguz

MAY 23, 2021

While not as hyperbolic an inflation rate as copper or lumber, the price trajectory of early stage cloud startups does result from a similar supply demand/imbalance. The market feels different. Investment processes last a few days. Pricing rounds on multiples like public market investing. Vibrant secondary markets.

Software Review 364

Software Review Venture Capital Cloud Pricing 364

SaaStr

JUNE 30, 2023

Braze didn’t find a true product-market fit until around 2014-2015. If you’re struggling to see product-market fit, it can be nerve-wracking. But if the market isn’t ready, it isn’t ready. If you spend too much too early when you lack product-market fit, you’re pushing rope.

Scale 187

Scale Mobile Venture Capital Scaling 187

SaaStr

JANUARY 10, 2024

In this CMO panel from SaaStr, Rick Schultz, CMO at Databricks, Janine Pelosi, Former CMO at Zoom, and Ryan Carlson, Former CMO at Okta, joined Carilu Dietrich, Advisor at Hypergrowth B2B Startups to talk about the seven biggest mistakes CMOs make. Leading him to some of his biggest mistakes when hiring: Not investing enough time.

Sales Hiring 236

Sales Hiring Scale Technical Review Leadership 236

SaaStr

JULY 30, 2023

PST, G shares low CAC, scalable tactics for earlier growth-stage startups. Build A Growth Team After You Have Product Market Fit The job of growth teams is to experiment and fail at least 70% of the time. The role of marketing teams is to succeed, ideally 100% of the time. How Fast Is “Hyper-Growth?” Map it all out.

Scale 193

Scale Sales Hiring AI Banking 193

SaaStr

OCTOBER 7, 2022

The number of global venture capital (VC) investments dipped in 2022, thanks to ongoing geopolitical tensions, turbulence in global capital markets, supply chain issues, and increasing interest rates. The rise and fall of these investments have resulted in negativity in the global VC space in 2022. The recent downward movement.

Venture Capital 197

Venture Capital Marketing Startup Construction 197

SaaStr

APRIL 17, 2024

The Journey of Selling Your Startup Harry was the co-founder and CEO of Periscope Data, which raised a seed round before finding customers, yet didn’t run out of money before becoming an overnight success 3-4 years later. They grew like crazy when they found product-market-fit and raised a big Series A and B. It can feel lonely.

Underperforming Technical Team 164

Underperforming Technical Team Data Development Team Review Technical Review 164